Corporate Crime

Offenses committed by large corporations in society. Pollution, mislabeling, violations of health and safety regulations affect much larger number of people than petty criminality. The increasing power and influence of large corporations, and their rapidly growing global reach means that our lives are touched by them in many ways. Corporations are involved in producing cars that we drive and the food we eat. They also have an enormous effect on the natural environment and financial markets, aspects of life, which affect all of us.
 

Slapper and Tombs (1999) have listed six types of violations by corporations:
•  Administrative(non-compliance of rules).
•  Environmental (pollution, permits violations resulting in disasters. Victims).
•   Financial (tax violations, permits violations).
•  Labor(working conditions, hiring practices).
•  Manufacturing (product safety, labeling).
•  Unfair trading practices (anti-competition, false advertising)

Victims of corporate crime don’t see themselves as such.
Difficult to see as a victim of whom? Who is the perpetrator? Great distance in time and space when the offence was committed and its appearance.
 

Don’t know who has victimized, how to seek redress for crime.
Effects of corporate crime are often experienced unevenly in society.
Poor workers are victims of pollution, safety hazards.
Violent aspects of corporate crime are less visible than in cases of homicide.
Pollution leading to physical harm/death, and there are side effects of drugs as well as contraceptives. Such crimes are often seen
as ‘complaint-less’.
 

Organized crime syndicate such as the mafia may choose to resemble legitimate business but employ corrupt or illegal organizations to secure loan repayment, avoid taxes or to discipline labor. Organized crime refers to the forms of business that appears to be legal but actually is illegal. It embraces smuggling, illegal gambling (sports, lotteries, and horse races), drug trade, prostitution, large-scale theft, and protection rackets. It often relies on violence or threat of violence to conduct its activities.

It has become increasingly transnational networks in scope. It provides illegal goods and services to mass
consumer (Money laundering, sale of nuclear material) International organized crime greatly facilitated by recent advances in information technology. Advances in technology have provided exciting new opportunities and benefits, but they also heighten vulnerability to crime. Cyber-crime i.e. criminal acts committed with the help of information technology are already there.
 

The examples of technology based crimes are: eves-dropping, electronic vandalism and terrorism,
pornography, telemarketing fraud, stealing telecommunications services, electronic funds transfer crimes,
electric money laundering, criminal conspiracies

Ethnicity and Crime
Both race and ethnicity are strongly correlated to crime rates. In UK and in USA far more blacks than whites brought to court and sent to prison.
Explanation:

Prejudice related to color or class prompts white police to arrest black people more readily and leads citizens more willingly to report African Americans to police as suspected offenders, which means that people of color are overly criminalized. It is just racism.

Race in USA closely relates to social standing and affects one’s likelihood of engaging in street crime. Blacks mostly belong to working class (or under class). Poor people living in midst of affluence come to perceive society as unjust. They are more likely to suffer from the feeling of relative deprivation and are more likely to turn to crime.

Black and white family patterns differ. In US 2/3rds of the black children (compared to one-fifth of white children) are born to single mothers. They have less supervision and high risk of growing up in poverty, hence more chances of criminality.
 

Official crime index excludes white-collar crimes, which are more committed by whites. This omission contributes to the view of the typical criminal as a person of color. Different ethnic backgrounds are related to crime rates. In UK the Asians and the Africans differed in their expectations at new place.
 

Also they had different cultural and colonial background. It has been seen that the local Asian communities support the new entrants but for blacks there appears to be no such resource. Blacks have been found in situations that encountered racism. Blacks’ resistance to discrimination got politicized in mid 1970s. The young blacks got stereotyped with mugging problem, hence got extra attention by police with the impression that the black immigrants had difficulties in observing the rule of law. Therefore they got to be disciplined and punished. It amounted to racism The black’s behavior may have been due to their sense of relative deprivation, their subculture, their marginalization, and willingness to challenge law and order by the youth.
 

[Marginalization: Young blacks feel that they have been pushed to the edge of society –Doing less well in school, getting badly paid jobs, -being likely to be unemployed, few outlets for political expression.
Relative deprivation: greater expectation of material success.
 

[Subcultures emerge due to mismatch between aspirations and the constraints of reality.] Some categories of population have usually low rates of arrest, and Asians are one of those. They have higher than average educational achievements, good jobs, and above average income. Also the Asian culture emphasizes family solidarity and discipline, and both these factors inhibit criminality.